Foot Soldiers

by Neil Williams

“So,” she said softly. “What do we do now? “ She didn’t want to say it, but felt she had to. “Let it go?”

  Ned fired another Malteaser into his mouth and crunched down. “Nah!”

  He could see from the delighted look on her face that she was as pleased as punch with his reply. “Attaboy!”

  7

  Ralph Kramer may well have had a ‘knack’ for solving any case that landed on his desk, back when he was a Chief Inspector, but when it came to cookery, he was... well, knackered.

  The only dish he knew how to make... kind of make... was corned beef hash. And that night, when Ned and Matilda arrived for supper, that’s exactly what he’d made. He had toyed briefly with the idea of having a bash at spaghetti bolognese and homemade garlic bread, but realised that would have been a stretch, even for a man of his capabilities, so decided to stick to what he knew. Not that Ned was thrilled when he found out what was on the menu.

  “Eat your supper, it’s getting cold!” ordered Ralph, pouring himself a second glass of Peculiar Mist. He’d gained a thirst for the oddly named ale after stealing “ZZ”s during their visit to The Bull and was delighted when he accidently discovered they now sold bottles of it in the local ‘offie.

  “I don’t like corned beef!” snapped Ned like a petulant kid.

  Ralph shook his head. ‘Bloody kids’ he thought. He was about to make his son feel guilty by explaining to him that he’d spent the best part of that afternoon preparing the sodding dish, but Ned had other, more pressing things on his mind and quickly shared them with the group before he had a chance to rant at him.

  “So,” he said leering at Ralph, “Who did it then?”

  “It wasn’t Eddie,” Matilda butted in.

  Ralph shook his head in agreement. “No, it wasn’t.” He plonked his mobile phone down on the table and slid it under Ned and Matilda’s noses. “And it wasn’t about Liam trying to get his hands on a relic to pay off his debt, neither.” He gulped back a mouthful of Peculiar Mist. “It was about LOVE.”

  Ned squinted suspiciously and then looked down at the photograph displayed on Ralph’s mobile phone. What he saw made him gasp.

  It was a selfie that Dean had taken up at Hadrian’s Wall with Liam. His arm was slung around his shoulder. Liam’s fingers were lost in his. They were smiling and had warmth in their eyes. They looked so happy and alive... so ‘in love’ with one another.

  Ned fired a stern look at Ralph. “Where did you get this?”

  “Found it on Dean’s phone. He’d left it in his anorak.”

  “But, how did you get it on yours?”

  “I waved my magic wand at it,” he said sarcastically. “How’d you think I got it?”

  “Hey, don’t get snarky with me. You‘re the one who stole it, not me!”

  “What you gonna do, lock me up?”

  “No, ‘cos knowing my luck, they’d put me in the same cell as you!”

  Matilda waved her hands at them. “Children, please!”

  They took a breath and muttered to themselves. Ned still couldn’t believe what he’d heard, but figured it was already far too late in the day to bollock his old man for stealing other people’s personal belongings.

  “Dean and Liam,” said Ralph, getting back on track, “they weren’t rivals... They weren’t even friends...”

  “They were lovers.”

  Ralph nodded at Ned. Clearly chuffed with himself for arriving at the same conclusion at his father, he let out a delightful “Yes!”

  “Just for the record,” barked Matilda, not wanting to be left out of all the self praising that was going on, “I thought that too.” She turned to Ned. “I ran into your house mate this morning after...”

  “What, Brinkley?” he interrupted.

  She nodded. “He said ‘looks can be deceptive’ and the whole thing just... clicked. That, and Liam – he turned me down once.” She looked at Ned sheepishly. “Twice.”

  Ralph groaned a giggle. “Oh, how the ladies loved him, eh?”

  Ned smiled at her. “Heath Ledger in a Stetson! That, and Rocky and Apollo Creed. They become mates in the third film.”

  Ralph leaned forward and picked up his mobile. There was a splash of sadness in his eyes as he gazed at the selfie of Dean and Liam. “I don’t really know when their ‘relationship’ started, but I know why it ended.”

  “The baby,” Matilda said severely. “Dean was going to become a dad! He had to finish it with Liam.”

  Ralph sighed. “Big changes happen when you become a parent.” He caught Ned’s eye. “Sacrifices need to be made.”

  His son sneered coldly back at him. “Like you’d know?”

  “Jesus,” he groaned. “If you want me to say sorry, then I’m sorry.” He plonked the phone down on the table, “But this isn’t about you and me right now, son – it’s about Liam and Dean... and Linda... and their little baby girl.”

  He sat back and took another gulp of Peculiar Mist. “We can’t be sure what really happened up at the wall, but I can hazard a guess at what did.”

  The rain whipped around Dean as he swept his metal detector over the mucky ground he squelched through in the wellington boots Linda had bought him for Christmas. It was a cold and blustery night up at the wall, but Dean didn’t care. He was doing what he loved. Suddenly, the detector crackled violently. There was something lurking in the mud beneath his boots.

  “Dean was up there, beeping around, looking for treasures... and then he found some,” said Ralph, as Dean hurriedly grabbed the hand shovel out of the canvas sack he carried on his back, sunk his knees into the squelch and started digging.

  Clawing back the blackened earth, Dean reached into the hole and pulled out what looked like a rusty old knife. His eyes sparked with delight... it was a Pugio. It was knackered and mucky and crumbling, but to him it was treasure. He quickly rubbed the dirt from the blade with the sleeve of his jacket and examined the blistered relic.

  “Only Liam showed up.”

  What sounded like footsteps scraping through the muck behind him grabbed Dean’s ear. He threw a curious look back over his shoulder. There, stood behind him, drenched to the skin and sobbing, was Liam. He looked like a frightened little boy.

  “Liam,” he said startled. “What are you doing here?”

  Ralph looked again at the selfie of Dean and Liam. “He needed to get out of town, but he wasn’t going to leave without Dean.” He scraped his eyes away from the photograph and turned towards Ned and Matilda. “Only Dean must have told him they were over, but Liam – he... He wouldn’t have it.” He sighed and looked again at the selfie. “I dunno. Maybe he threatened Dean... warned him he’d tell Linda if he didn’t run away with him... or take him back.” He tapped the mobile against the table. “Whatever Liam said or did, he wasn’t going to let Dean go.”

  “So Dean stabbed him?” said Matilda.

  “That, or Liam tried to stab him.”

  Liam lay silently on the ground. A tear dribbled down his pale cheek and dripped like a tap into the cold, wet earth. Sunk deep into his sternum; the splintered, bloody blade of the Pugio. Dean stood over him. His hands were plastered in blood and muck. He couldn’t stop them from shaking. He wanted to run, but was too scared and numb to move. He looked down at Liam... looked into his dead, green eyes.

  “Love makes you do stupid things,” said Ralph. “Whichever way around it was, it ended badly for Liam, that’s for ruddy sure.”

  Teary and shaking, Dean dropped to his knees and started digging. Then, after the grave was dug, he stripped Liam naked and stuffed the bloodied garments, his mobile phone and the dagger into his sack.

  Then he dragged Liam’s limp body through the muck and pulled it down into the waterlogged hole.

  “The rest,” whispered Ralph, “Is history.”

  A shovel of damp earth hit Liam in the face.

  Ralph wiped his bloodshot eyes with the back of his hands and bellowed a sigh.

  “What about Linda?” asked Ned, “Does she
know?”

  Ralph gulped back the froffy dregs of Peculiar Mist. “She has to,” he burped. “She was his alibi.”

  Then Matilda ruined the party. “The only problem now is...”

  He shot her a withered look. “How do we prove it?”

  “Yep.”

  Ralph picked up his mobile and smirked like a mischievous kid who knew where his Gran had hidden the chocolate digestives.

  “With six ‘little’ words!”

  ---

  Dean sat at the kitchen table, cradling Molly-Jane, who sucked happily on the bottle her daddy was feeding her. He smiled warmly at her. “Who’s a hungry little girl then, eh?”

  Stood at the sink washing that night’s dishes, Linda watched Dean with Molly-Jane. She cracked a smile, but her eyes swelled with sadness.

  Suddenly, the mobile phone on the counter vibrated and rattled violently next to her. She wiped her hands with a damp tea towel and reached over to pick it up. Pressing her finger to the screen, a text message popped up.

  The mobile clattered onto the tiled floor and shattered.

  Linda was truly horrified.

  8

  Monroe and Sommers weren’t getting any sleep, and judging by the amount of coffee they’d guzzled back over the last few days, it was highly unlikely they’d ever sleep again. The Liam Roberts case was beginning to take its toll on them and although Ned and Matilda’s accidental discovery that Liam owned Eddie McMillan twenty thousand pounds after losing a game of poker was juicy stuff, it hadn’t panned out the way they’d have hoped. To make matters worse, all their suspects had solid alibis for the night Liam was murdered... well, that was, apart from one!

  They slurped on their coffees and narrowed their wormy little eyes at “ZZ”, who sat across from them at a table in the interview room. He was clearly pissed off about having to explain his whereabouts on the night of Liam’s demise to them... again!

  “I told you before,” he barked. “I was in The Bull all night. It was Quiz Night!”

  Sommers begged to differ. “Not according to the Landlord, Alvin Stoker. He has no recollection of seeing you in the pub all evening.”

  “What, that drunk?!” he groaned. “He has no recollection of his own name half the time!”

  Monroe was about to have a crack at the whip, when the door behind him flung open and a flustered Ned toppled into the room and grabbed his shoulder.

  “Oh, sorry,” he gasped trying to catch his breath. “I know this isn’t my case and all, but...”

  “Ned?”

  Hearing the familiar bark, Ned looked up and saw “ZZ” gawping back at him like a Nun in a brothel. “Aw, hiya ‘ZZ’!”

  “What are you doing here... in a police uniform?”

  He was about to mumble pathetically, when Monroe and Sommers sneered up at him and barked “But?!”

  He took a moment to remember why he’d ambushed their interview. “But I thought you’d like to know who really murdered Liam Roberts?”

  Monroe and Sommers scraped curiously around to face him and then cast their suspicious eyes on “ZZ”. He shook his head and waved his hands at them like a Charleston dancer. “It wasn’t me!”

  ---

  Bullets of rain fired down from the brooding sky and soaked the back of someone hunched over in the shadows, frantically dragging the withered Fur tree out of the earth and dumping it on the lawn.

  Their dirty fingers dove into the murky ditch and clawed violently at the soil, scooping it out of the hole until they found what looked like a canvas bag buried in the ground.

  Dragging the rotting bag from out of the deep, the figure winced at the foul stench as they rest it upon their lap and hurried to unfasten the rusted buckle. Delving their hand into the bag, they rummaged around inside and pulled out a splintered dagger that was caked in rust and stained with blood.

  Their hand shook nervously as it held the knife, so they quickly stuffed it back into the bag and scrambled up onto their feet. Turning back towards the light of the house, the figure stopped dead.

  Waiting for Linda at the bottom of the garden path were Ralph and Matilda.

  “I’m sorry, love,” he said moving slowly up the path towards her. Her welling eyes sank. She knew it was over.

  Ralph wrapped his fingers tenderly around her arm. She gazed into his sorry eyes. There were tears in her throat. “The text message,” she gasped. “That was you?”

  He leaned into her and whispered softly in her ear six little words. “I know where you hid it.”

  9

  She looked so pale and drained of life... of hope. Her once sparkling eyes were now red and raw from crying. She tried to look Matilda and Sommers in the face, but couldn’t lift her head. It felt heavy and empty, like stone.

  “I’d know about it for ages,” she whispered with a quiver in her throat. “But I wasn’t strong enough to tell him that I knew he was seeing Liam.” She craned her head. “I was scared he would leave me if I did.” Her mouth cracked a sad smile. “Then we had Molly and – Dean... He’d always wanted to have children. Always wanted to be a dad, so... I told him that I knew.” She looked down. “I made him choose.”

  ---

  Rubbing away a tear with the palm of his hand, Dean glanced shamefully at Monroe and Ned. “I took the coward’s way out of it. I text dumped him.”

  Ned really wanted to laugh, but knew that it wouldn’t have gone down too well with either Monroe or Dean, so bit down hard on his lip to stop himself.

  “But, Liam,” sighed Dean. “He... He wouldn’t bloody have it. He kept pestering me to take him back.... to run away with him. I told him ‘no’, but he wouldn’t have it. He came looking for me.”

  Monroe grumbled. “You said in your statement that you were at home all night?”

  He shook his head. “I needed to get my head together after... you know? I walked up to the wall. I’d just found the knife when...” He could see Liam as clearly as he could Ned and Monroe. “It all happened so fast. I don’t remember words or what was said, I just...” He held his face in his hands. “The next thing I know, there was blood everywhere.” He slipped his fingers away and looked at Ned. “Liam, he was down on the ground. He was dead.”

  Ned lowered his gaze and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He’d longed for so many years to play the grizzled detective and solve a juicy murder, but now the bloody reality of it all suddenly felt like a bitter pill in his mouth.

  Dean welled up and quivered. “I panicked. I needed help.”

  Ned looked at him. “So you rang your wife? You rang Linda?”

  ---

  “I told him to bury Liam.” She couldn’t look them in the eyes. “I told him to bury his past. We burned his clothes and buried the knife and his phone in the garden. Dean went to Liam’s flat and packed a bag to make it look like he’d gone. Then...” She shook her head at the stupidity of ever thinking it could be put behind them. “Then I thought ‘that was it’. I was over.”

  She sucked back her tears and glanced at Matilda. “Fucking Archaeologists!”

  “Yeah,” she smirked sadly.

  Then the cold light of day hit Linda like a lightning bolt and she crumpled. “I just want my baby!”

  ---

  Ralph loitered outside the station like a bad penny and silently rubbed at the rain on his fingers. He could see his mum’s unblinking eyes as her head rolled across the pillow towards him. Then he saw Ned wandering out of the station and down the steps towards him. He hurriedly rubbed his fingers against his trouser leg and turned towards him, “All done?”

  Ned nodded ‘yeah’.

  “Poor kids,” he said sincerely. He kicked his foot against the step and sighed, “Poor Liam. I feel for the lad, I really do.” He looked up at Ned with sombre eyes. “I know you won’t believe me son, but when your mother left me, I...” He gasped. “I wanted to die.”

  Ned muttered in surprise. This was news to him.

  “I really did think about it,” he confessed softly
. “One night, I had a bit too much to drink and... I did... I really wanted to end it all.”

  “Oh shit!”

  He shot Ned a curious frown. “What is it?”

  “Just...” he rambled, turning back up the steps towards the station, “Just wait here!”

  Before Ralph could muster up any kind of a reply, Ned bolted up the steps and back through the station’s doors.

  ---

  The door into the interview room smashed against the wall and Ned burst in to find Monroe sat with Dean at the table.

  “Sorry Sir, but...“ He fired a look at Dean. “You didn’t stab Liam, did you?”

  “I’m sorry?” snarled Monroe.

  Ned stepped towards Dean. “And he didn’t try and stab you.” He paused suddenly, as if waiting for a drum roll. “He stabbed HIMSELF!”

  Monroe almost fell off his chair as he turned to face Ned.

  “Linda already knew about the affair. So Liam, he had nothing on you... had nothing to keep you with him.”

  Down on his knees in the dirt, Liam pleaded with Dean not to leave him, but he turned his back to him and slowly walked away.

  “Please!” he yelled after him.

  “I can’t,” snapped Dean with a tremble in his voice. “I’m sorry, Liam. “ He closed his eyes and sighed. “It’s over.”

  Liam could feel his heart shattering under his chest and struggled to breath. “Please, Dean, no,” he gasped. “I love you!”

  Dean whispered that he loved him too, but the howling wind stole those words from Liam’s ear. He bowed his head and saw the knife lying on the ground near his knees. “Dean!”

  Dean stopped and threw a look back over his shoulder, as Liam grabbed at the knife and plunged it hard into his own chest.

  “No!”

  Ned turned to Monroe. “His world had fallen apart.” He looked at Dean. “Liam... he’d rather die than live without you.”